Quiet day

Well, I’ve been checking the TNT consignment tracker all day, and it looks as if the MacBook I wound up ordering is somewhere in the skies between Singapore and Grafton. Grafton. Where on earth is that? Estimated delivery date is the 10th, which means it’s not likely the laptop’s going to plop down in my lap this afternoon (though a girl can still, irrationally, hope).

This week has been extremely quiet at work, and aside from a full day of work on a client site yesterday, there’s been a lot of web surfing. I’d much rather be at home, doing something productive like poking around in the garden, but the intricacies of work dictate that although I have nothing to do, I must do nothing here at my desk. Fair enough then. I shall blog.

Steve is going for a bike ride at lunchtime, which is a good thing, as it means that the Karapoti hasn’t put him off biking. He did amazingly, by the way - even though he hasn’t updated all the details on his blog yet - beating his previous PB with a time of 3 hours 22 minutes.

So anyway, I have a free lunch period (sounds like I’m back in school) and I have both a book (Wuthering Heights) and a notebook to keep me company. I just need somewhere quiet to go. I don’t really fancy sitting in a cafe somewhere - you always feel like you have to move on once your coffee’s finished - but refuse to stay here at my desk. Steve suggested the cemetery, which is a lot less morbid than it sounds. The Bolton Street Cemetery is a lovely place just off The Terrace, where heaps of people go for lunch. Much nicer than Midland Park (which someone very kindly has reviewed), which gets so crowded and gives you the impression of a whole lot of suited pigeons who can’t think of anywhere better to sit. The cemetery is more my style, though I hope it’s not too cold.

…Where the hell is Grafton? Is it in Auckland?

In other news, each of the (three) items that I’ve put up on TradeMe have precisely… no bids. I wonder if it’s because I’ve priced them fairly, answered everyone’s questions promptly and included some good photos? Nah, that couldn’t be it.

Wednesday

What is it with Wednesdays that just do not inspire confidence? It started this morning in bed, before I’d even got up: urgh, it’s Wednesday….. sorry to say I’m having one of those days where I’d rather be at home reading.

In other news (hurrah, there is some!) my Pendemonium ink order arrived yesterday. Four gorgeous J. Herbin inkpots, in Bleu Pervenche, Lierre Sauvage, Cafe des Iles and Ambre de Birmanie. Pens were immediately rinsed out (nearly empty ones I mean) and filled - the Parker with the Ambre de Birmanie, the Lamy with Lierre Sauvage. So far, so good, aside from my green-stained fingers.

Got a couple of text messages from James yesterday - he’s in Portland! What a coincidence that he’s there as well as Jeremy and Megumi. He was heading up to go see Mt. St. Helens and then was going to be driving down to L.A. - I hope Steve & I can make it back sometime soon (next year maybe). I miss James - I hope he comes over here once he’s finished his South America trip.

There’s also some really weird shit going on with the weather at the moment. I know - weather. Hardly the most scintillating topic, however there’s some serious winds hitting the south island at the moment while strangely, Wellington’s enjoying some pretty balmy weather, which is always going to be considered weird for the town that can out-blow Chicago.

Oh, and a week till NaNoWriMo starts - you can find me here.

Big time catch-up

Jeez, it’s been a little while. Things have been so busy, it’s not funny!

Steve & I have found a place that we’re going to make an offer on. It’s up for tender and we’ve no idea what anyone else is going to be bidding, but we’re going to go for it. So we’ve been going back and forth to the property (with the real estate guy, Noel) to go through it with a builder, Steve’s mate Scott (the plumber), the valuer (tomorrow) and a trip to the open home with Daph & Graeme. We’ve also been back and forth to the bank a couple times but have got our pre-approval sorted out now. The tender’s next week, so we’re gonna be crossing our fingers till then!

I’ve been trying to find a new job for ages, and finally got one! It’s with a software company in town (Intergen), doing software testing. They’re a really cool, young, growing, go-places sort of place. It has a really good vibe and some of my friends (Brent, Simon & Nathan) already work there and say it’s a great place to work. My last day here is the 20th of July, which is weird, but also feels really really good.

I’ve been doing a little bit of crafty stuff lately, including spinning, knitting, and making lip balms! The spinning and knitting are my own hand-dyed (and hand-spun) stuff, which always feels wonderful, while the lip balm making is pretty new. I read up about it on Majestic Mountain Sage but then found out they don’t ship liquids overseas. So then I went back and ordered some basics off TradeMe, and got the rest (flavour oils, cute little containers) from Escentials of Australia. They were really good to deal with - they rang me from Aussie when I had typed in my credit card details incorrectly, and the goodies arrived in only a couple of days.

I’ve also got my research essay I have to complete as soon as I can (especially if the house goes through, cause we’d be doing a fair bit of renovating before we moved in) - 10,000 words by October. Ideally I’d like to get it done before then, so naturally I’ve been spending all my time reading the Robin Hobb Assassin books (nearly through book number three!) which are totally compulsive reads.

I really do need to get through my huge stash of fleece and wool that’s threatening to take over one corner of my little study. I’ve got one big bag in particular, that I was hoping to spin in the grease. I haven’t been able to find a lot of information on the net about it, cause most people tend to like spinning white fluffy fleece. I just want to try it out and see what it’s like (though I hear it clogs up your spinning wheel’s orifice just a tad)! Plus I see the listings in my Etsy shop have expired. Whoops. Better get spinning again.

Free afternoon

I got a phone call this morning from Brian to say he couldn’t make it this afternoon, so I’m here at work with no trip up to uni, but still it’s a little bit of a relief. Not that I don’t enjoy our discussions of my (slowly) developing research paper, but it will be good to be able to go to the next meeting with a bit more to show for myself.

Work’s incredibly quiet and dull at the moment and I’m finding it really difficult these days to maintain some degree of enthusiasm for what’s become a highly repetitious, mind-numbing set of routines.

Yesterday Steve and I went to the Wellington city gallery during lunch and had a look at the “Telecom Prospect 2007” exhibition. As with a lot of modern art, some was exciting and interesting, some pretty ho-hum. I very much like the gallery though, set in the middle of the Civic Square. It reminds me a little of the area around the library in The Hague, which I used to bike to every week or so when I lived over there.

- Some days I biked out to Scheveningen too, which was awesome. I miss being able to cycle everywhere. Wellington’s a great city, but a lot of people who drive are still real jerks when it comes to looking out for cyclists, plus the streets are often too narrow to give any cyclists real space. I don’t bike at all here, and I miss it.

Those days were really awesome, and though it’s weird thinking back to times spent with an ex, I felt good in myself back then. I was writing a lot, reading a lot, working very little, discovering The Hague, cycling around, seeing loads of great art as well. Not just Van Gough and Piet Mondrian (who I fell in love with), but a lot of other contemporary European art as well. I very much think the not working had a lot to do with it, but there was also the excitement of discovering a new place, having the time to write and read copiously, and having free reign over Aart’s apartment when he was at work. Plus it was great getting to the point when I could communicate with shopkeepers in dutch, or order things in pubs (not just ‘twee bieren’ either) . And I love foreign supermarkets, hehe.

I’d love to re-connect with that feeling again. And I do think it’s possible to do that in Wellington. There are so many things I have here that completely top what I had back then, especially Steve and Sooty, who make me feel so amazing. But my work situation really is bad news, I don’t like what it has done to my brain and my self-confidence. I need to explore more, do some more stuff on my own. (Quit and get some kooky random job…)

Best swim so far

Monday at work. The day’s actually gone by pretty quickly, and it was a lovely day, so I really can’t complain there. Yes, it’s Autumn, but it’s still sunny, with just a hint of crispness in the air. I love it.

Steve & I went home for lunch, rode home on the scooter, up past the Botanic Gardens (and bus loads of tourists), under the viaduct and up to Karori. It’s strange living in the burbs after so long being right in town. I like the space though. Like our big back yard and garden, and I love so much having a cat. Sooty is so damn awesome.

It was a good weekend, too. I met with Brian up at uni, and discussed my research topic some more - it’s actually threatening to take shape! That was Thursday. Friday was Peter’s last day at work, so we had some farewell drinks for him, and then Steve and I headed home to meet his parents, who stayed with us for the weekend.

It was really lovely to see them again, to just relax and do things like cook them dinner and watch Father Ted reruns with them. I got some study done, and actually got the drum carder out that Steve gave me for my birthday last year, and carded up a whole blend of bright pink wool with this gorgeous black Alpaca I’ve had since we made that trip out to Nicola’s friend’s farm. I started spinning it yesterday. It’s a really lovely pink with black flecks, and so soft with the Alpaca. It’s gorgeous. I spun and watched Goonies. It was bloody great.

Then in the afternoon, Steve came with me to the pools and we both did some lengths. I had my best swim so far (since I got back into swimming mid-March) - 32 lengths! 800 metres! I know that’s peanuts compared to what normal swimmers swim, but for me, it felt amazing to have got to that point. I’m really happy about it!!

New NZGamer review and preview

Just a quick “hello”, to add in these links for a new review and preview I recently wrote for NZGamer.com.

Warhawk preview

Jade Empire (PC) review

Aside from that, have been busy with uni (I’m finally kicking off my research topic, which is going to be on virtual worlds), going to stuff around town (including the very excellent Camera Obscura concert at the San Fran Bathhouse), playing Okami on my new PS2, work, and hanging out with my boys, Steve & Sooty!

Coming soon? Lemonheads and Gomez gigs, I can’t wait!

Well, I’m 30 now.

And to be honest, I don’t feel all that different. I’m back at work, after a nice long Christmas break up in Taupo, and flew back to Welling-town this morning. Steve picked me up from the airport. It was so wonderful to see him again, I couldn’t believe how much I missed seeing his smiling face, after just three days away.

It’s a terrible day today. Grey, windy as hell, wet road and sidewalks out the window. I’ve been scouring the net for any interesting organisational software, etc. and didn’t really find that much. Something called PageFour, but I’m not really sure how good it is. I was reading about some dude on the net, a published writer, who uses this outlining software, but I really wonder how much of it is bunk and avoidance, and how much of it is useful. (I thought it could be a good way to do some brainstorming and general information gathering at work.) What I really need is some sort of note organiser. My desk is covered with notes - notes everywhere, stuff that I don’t want to throw out because it all seems important somehow. If I could compile everything together in one place then maybe I could clean up the mess a little.

Speaking of mess, Steve and I moved into a new place at the start of the month. There are still boxes everywhere (all my junk) and even though I have my own study now, I really don’t know where to put anything. I need some filing cabinets, I think. (Organisation, again!) Maybe I just need to get hard and throw everything out. I don’t know.

I’m really looking forward to getting home. Having a look around. Giving Sooty a wee tickle (O yes! My new cat! He is awesome!) I want to look out the dining room window out at the backyard, at the wet, dewy grass and dark green trees. I want to sit in my study and look out the windows at the next door neighbour’s huge ferns growing up and past the house. It has huge fronds as big as my fist.

I’m also really looking forward to trying out my new drum carder that Steve got me for my birthday! Yes, it’s an Ashford one! The drums are covered in this soft pink rubbery material, and the teeth are fine and shiny (even though it is a coarse carder, it’s nothing like the one I bought on TradeMe a while ago. Ye gods, that thing’s a monster!

I’ve also been lucky enough to find a notebook of morning pages from when I was living in Dublin. I started reading them last night in bed, but because I had to get up so early (5:30) to get my flight down to Wellington, I didn’t get the chance got have a good read. I was so organised, so creative, so hopeful about the future! I want to tap into that somehow. I’ve become…placated somehow.

(And I was also lucky enough to find in archives.com, some of the missing diary-x entries that I was never able to recover. Nowhere near all of them, but something small to remind me of what I was doing back then. I’ll try and add them to this blog, so I can at least have everything all together in one place.)

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Well, I’m back

And sheesh, we had an incredible time. I’m not even going to try and start describing the trip - rather, I’m going to update the blog with notes from my diary and accompanying photos. Just give me a week or so…

In other news, Steve and I have signed up for a new flat! I say flat, but it’s actually a complete, standalone house, with three bedrooms, a big lounge, big kitchen, dining room off the kitchen, huge back yard and a garage! The third bedroom is more of a sun room, which I’m dying to turn into a study. Steve’s already made off with the garage for his own, and has been mentally filling it with mountain bikes, his motorbike, and the dream scooter he wants to buy, as well as tools and gardening equipment. The back yard’s perfect for Sunday barbecues, and apparently gets a lot of sun. And I’m going to get a cat! I can hardly believe it. Found one on trademe that looks awesome, a three legged sweetie named Spanky. I’m going to go meet him on Saturday to see if we hit it off. (If he turns out to hate me then I’ll probably go look for another cat at the Cats Protection League.)

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P.S. Shapeshifter

Oh, and p.s. - I’m going to the Shapeshifter gig tonight, you know, the one at the Opera House, with the Symphony Orchestra! I heard through the grapevine (my Mum) that Redford would have a few spare tickets but didn’t know anyone in town to give them to. He passed on his phone number and said he’d be happy to give me one! So nice of him, especially as we haven’t seen each other in years… Anyway, his mum’s going as well, so fingers crossed we’re sitting next to each other (I was thinking it’d just be my luck and I’d wind up sitting next to someone hideous…)

Starts at 7:30 tonight - can’t wait!

Alpacamania!

So on the weekend, Rochelle, Nicola and I went and visited some of Nicola’s friends, Stephen and Tamara, a couple of awesome people who came all the way over to NZ to live the green life and raise Alpacas.

Their farm and house are so pretty, tucked up a valley that’s only about twenty minutes north of Wellington. And their alpacas are gorgeous:

Ooo, we had a great time! (I’ve only got videos of Nicola, so unfortunately there’s no pic of her here…)

In the end I wound up being able to buy about 600g of beautiful black fleece from a gorgeous girl named Galadriel (who I was able to watch spitting a couple of times). She’s the black one in three of the photos above.

Heading up north

Yep, heading up north in an hour and twenty minutes. We’re leaving work an hour early and driving up to Taupo for a nice long weekend - the world mountainbike champs are on in Rotorua (Steve’s got the link on his blog), and we’ve got tickets! Forecast is for rain though, and the Desert Road’s been closed for the past few days due to snow and ice. It’s only just re-opened today, so here’s hoping we can get through without too much trouble.

I’m taking books, some pretty wool and alpaca I’ve just spun recently (just to show off) and some socks that I’ve started knitting from this wool I dyed and then spun myself. It’s really an incredible feeling to make something from scratch, no matter what it is. I love it. Taking polyprops and my raincoat too.

Feeling sleepy. Had a nice kebab from this great place on the Terrace called Daniel’s. I don’t know a lot more about it, aside from the fact that their felafels have mint and other fresh herbs in them, and the food tastes a lot more…real than other places. Poor Steve and Brent got suckered in with an email Simon sent out this morning about how Chow Main Cube was having their first birthday, and were celebrating with $5 lunches. They both queued up and got their cheap lunches…an hour later! I got a kebab instead, and Simon, coming down the road from Unisys, saw the queue and made the quick decision that maybe Chow Main Cube would be better for dinner after all, hehe.

Last night we went back to Flying Burrito Brothers for dinner (and frozen margheritas). We had the pork crackling and salsa verde again (heart attack food! but so good!) and some pretty little tortilla and mole chicken starters. Steve had the enchilladas and I had more Mole Chicken that in the end I couldn’t finish. It was beautiful though.

Oh my god, I forgot to mention this earlier. Colette and David are going to be taking part in this year’s supercar rally. Even though they’re the official photographers, they are still getting a Maserati to drive! Lucky bums!

weekend catchup

The best thing about Ryvita crackers is that they don’t really seem to go stale. At least the ones in my desk drawer haven’t. I’ve been having them with peanut butter on them, on and off, for the better part of a month. They still seem crunchy and don’t have that stale taste to them.

I’ve been up to heaps lately.

The weekend was particularly good. On Saturday, Daphne and I went to Golding’s to do an Art Clay class. We came out of it with a silver ring each, that we’d made, and a necklace in the cast shape of a leaf. Steve picked us up, and we dropped Daphne off at her place. At the same time I picked up this aquarium that she was getting rid of. It’s quite a bit bigger than my one - 40 litres - and quite a bit longer.

Sunday we went to the pet store and got a new air pump (a flash Eheim one) to go with the undergravel filter and a hood light. Sunday afternoon was spent removing all the plants, then the fish themselves, then siphoning all the water out of the old tank (retaining as much of the old water as possible, in buckets, cooking pots, etc.), and finally transferring the gravel over to the new tank, then the fish, then the plants. It looks great now!

On Sunday evening we went to the premiere of the DVD release for the movie “The Last Hurrah” (the website for the book and the movie is here.) It was really fantastic. The Paramount was packed with bikies, most of whom showed up in their leathers and carrying helmets. They’d all shown up to lend support to two bloody tough buggers, both over 70, who had made the trip from China to Holland in three months. It was really fun.

After that we went to dinner at the Flying Burrito Brothers. We ate spicy pumkin seeds, pork crackling with salsa verde, burritos and enchiladas, and drank some beautifully sour and salty margaritas. Staggered home.

Also recently I got this great book from Amazon, called French for Reading. In addition to this, I also got some great books from Amazon.fr - including french versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Old Man and the Sea, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician’s Nephew. I’m really set up now. So my French lessons have been really enjoyable so far. I haven’t studied French formally since school, but I am finding it really interesting. I’m doing it for the express purpose of being able to read books in French - just to load up on books written in another language and have a crack at it. Sometimes that approach can be good - a bit like how we approached Old Norse for my uni paper.

I’ve also been really busy lately with all the reviews, etc. I’ve been writing for NZGamer. I think I’ve written eight reviews/columns in the past three weeks. Considering the fact that you have to give the games a decent play before you review them, my spare time in the evenings after work’s been pretty non-existent. I’m enjoying it though. I’ve got another three due this Friday.

Work is still boring me to tears, and I’m wracking my brain trying to think of how I can change my situation. Everything else in life is going swimmingly, and it’s frustrating to feel like how I earn a crust is beyond my control. Sure, it gives me the opportunity to do things like the art clay course, and to go out and buy fishtank stuff, etc. etc. etc., but at the same time I feel like I’m not being true to who I am with this job. Like I’m faking it. And it’s not even enjoyable to pretend to fake it anymore. I read about people who are librarians, teachers, doctors, accountants, journalists, or who serve in the armed forces. They’re such cut and dry sort of jobs, jobs that require a definite decision. I just don’t know how I could do something like that. I’ve thought about teaching, but thinking about it and feeling a passion for teaching are two such completely different things. I know I’m piddling around, wasting time. I need to set myself on some sort of strict regimen of no booze and plenty of writing - but other things seem to creep in and distract me. Perhaps I’m just too easily distracted. Sometimes I think things would be better if I wasn’t working, other times I think the structure is what I need to get out of bed and leave the house every day. I think Harvey Pekar said something similar about his file clerk job. You hate it, but at the same time it helps you out in ways you don’t want to acknowledge. It’s sort of like having to drink cod liver oil, I guess.

freezing night

Steve and I have just signed up for broadband, and we’ve set up a wireless router, so I am quite happily writing this in my room. It’s a freezing night. I’m sitting at my desk, toes burning from the cold. We’ve got two heaters running, I am wearing my nightgown, pyjama bottoms, robe, woolen socks and slippers, and my feet are still freezing. The wind keeps howling past the house and rattling the scaffolding outside. It really is one of the coldest winters New Zealand has had in some time. Down in the South Island, there are people who have been without power for close to two weeks, what with all the heavy, heavy snowfall down there. I don’t know how they are managing. We have power, and it’s still crazily cold.

Friday tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more pleased. I haven’t been well, and the cold is still lingering a bit. Still, I went back to work on Wednesday. Things at work are strange, what with my team shifting from the thirteenth to the first floor of our building, getting a new team leader, and Simon, my closest workmate, leaving the company. It almost feels like a new job - except the work is still pretty boring. I’ve been desperate for something new to do for so long, and really am growing tired of feeling ignored. Whether this is the intent or not, it’s the end effect.

However! Tomorrow is my American Gothic class party. Gothic pizza party. Costume essential… And Saturday, Daph and Graeme are coming round for dinner. Sunday is an afternoon movie at Ben & Tash’s with soup and bread. It’s going to be great.

Oh! And I forgot to mention, I finally got round to getting my hair cut. Six months plus it’s been, since I last had the chop. It’s nice. It feels light and flowey. Flowy. (both look wrong)

Have also completed a couple of articles for NZGamer: a preview for the Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, and a review of the very awesome puzzle game, eets. I recommend eets. Go check it out.

But now I’d better head off - I have to burn a CD of music for the gothic party. Will post pictures!

sick (and a few goals)

Hello, I’m writing to you from home today! I have been home for the past five days with a hideous cold - I even spent saturday night puking into a bucket. Nice eh. Today (Tuesday) finds me back in the land of the living, though I would by no means say I am anywhere near 100%. The last few days have gone by in a complete blur. It’s completely bizarre - I think I slept for the middle three days, and today made myself stay awake for most of the day (though I did have a few naps) in an attempt to acclimitise myself to having to get up for work tomorrow.

I suppose the one good thing about going to work tomorrow is that I’m actually on leave for half the day - so I will only be in for the morning. Then I will be heading home to wait for the Telstra man to come and install cable for Steve and I - so from tomorrow onwards, we will have cable TV and a cable modem. I am finally leaving dial-up behind me forever! (Well, for now, anyway.) I hope the cable TV thing isn’t going to be a pain. I mean, I hope we don’t wind up living in front of the TV or something. We pretty much got it so we won’t miss out on sports (rugby, motorbikes, that sort of thing) and I thought getting the Rialto channel might be nice, etc. etc. etc. It all feels a bit…normal, really. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.

I’m wracking my brain, trying to think of news, but of course, I’ve been home sick, I haven’t got any news. Apparently we have moved down to level 1 at work, so when I return I’ll probably spend most of the morning unpacking all the boxes I packed way back on Thursday. I have a bit of a window view, so it’s not all bad, but I reckon I was ripped off, as we were initially told that we’d be choosing desks based on how long we’d been working at the company - and there are quite a few people with better spots than mine. Ah, to hell with it. I’m looking for a new job. Must remember.

Speaking of which, I have applied for a couple of jobs this evening - both web writing positions, which I think is the only area in IT that I could tolerate at the moment. Fingers crossed. You never know.

One thing that I did do today (aside from finishing my damn embroidered spacegirl on a pillowcase which has been taunting me for the better part of a year) is make a list of a few things that I would like to complete this year (sheesh, I should just come right out and say it, yes, they’re goals). They are:

• get a new job
• pay off my credit card
• finish honours (research topic)
• work on the first draft of my novel

I realise that possibly these are just things to do, but I am not usually a goal-y planny type, so these are pretty good for me. Next year’s thoughts might include:

• think about doing a Master’s degree
• publish something (creative)
• get a part time job

again, not anything earth-shattering, just some things I would like to think about.

Oh, and I’ve been meaning to upload a few more photos. Just… generally. Here you are:

(doh, sorry it’s sideways)

camping on the weekend

Just thought I’d post a few photos of the trip Steve & I took on the weekend. We went down to Palliser Bay, on the south coast of the North Island, near Lake Ferry.